As a coach, I am sure you will agree a primary reason clients hire us is to help them achieve goals they feel they would not otherwise accomplish on their own without a coach. Perhaps it may simply be to speed up the process knowing they can do it and just feel they need support in staying focused and accountable.
For a coach to really be able to hold a space of success and fulfillment for their client, they must truly care about their client and be more committed to the client’s winning the end game than the process along the way. With that being said, the process – as awkward and messy as it sometimes can be – is often times the catalyst to personal and professional growth the client is really after. Be willing to get messy, awkward and out of control and encourage your client to do the same on their path to achieving their successes.
I like to refer to this discombobulating juncture in the coaching process as being “carefrontational.” Allow me to provide you an example of leveraging carefrontation in a gutsy coaching moment.
I’ll refer to a situation that really brought this to life for me as it was close to home. My son was 13 years old at the time and a competitive gymnast. He was doing quite well winning plenty of bronze and silver medals in various competitions. However, a gold medal appeared to be elusive. If anybody deserved a gold medal based on determination, hard work and talent is was this kid. Be that as it may, his current self concept was not quite that of champion status.
Toward the end of the season at a California state qualifying meet he performed exceptionally well landing a second place over all. He achieved his best scores in all events providing again silver and bronze medals but no gold. The ride home was heavy in emotion. When we got home it took all he had not to break down.
Up to that point we had been working on his visualizing winning a gold medal and he was starting to become, shall we say…impatient. As his dad who happens to also be a coach, I conveyed to him he just needs to keep with it and what he wants or something better will come. I jumped on my coaching box and attempted to pump him up and reiterate he must really feel the accomplishment in his gut as he was visualizing his winning the gold. We refer to this as “visceralizing the gold.” Well, at this point in the evening he was fed up with gymnastics, visualizing and coaching as he replied in a rather spirited way… “DAD! JUST QUIT “COACHING” ME! COACHING AND VISUALIZING DOESN’T WORK!”
Those words, from my son in that tone, were like a knife to the heart. Amazingly they were also a catalyst to my becoming a more powerful and impactful coach. For, in that moment, I found myself doing a gut check. I really checked in with myself as a dad and a professional coach. This was a crucial moment for me in my coaching career. My decision to make was do I back off or do I step up and challenge my son to learn how to develop a skill and habit that will serve him for the rest of his life well beyond his gymnastics career. Hopefully, the answer was obvious. I believed I needed to provoke his brilliance. In that moment, I could clearly see his championship potential whereas he was mired in a temporary hallucination of being only second best.
As he was committed to his story of never being able to win a gold medal the water works commenced. In that moment I decided to risk my son becoming really upset with me and I became “carefontational” and really called him on his focusing on what he didn’t want. I coached him to redirect the current emotion of frustration and disappointment and imagine being on top of the podium receiving the gold medal. At first he pushed back but his commitment for his limitations was not as strong as my determination for him to experience his championship potential and he eventually redirected his focus to a more empowering image of winning gold at his next meet. By this time it was time for bed. Sweet dreams.
At his very next event, again he was on track to have his best meet yet as each event’s score was better than those at his previous meets. His gymnastics coach does not allow the kids to see their scores throughout the competition. He feels this way the kids don’t get discouraged nor over confident during the competition and can be more present. They learn of their results at the awards ceremony at the end of the meet. However, my wife and I could see our son was on his way to his first gold medal.
At the conclusion of the competition as they announced the results for the pommel horse the announcer proceeded to reveal the name of the gymnast who secured the bronze, and then the silver. For the gold medal they announced the pommel horse champion as… Drake MacDonald! His joy burst through as he stepped up to receive his medal. He went on to win two more event golds and was the overall champion of the meet.
After the ceremonies, my beaming son told me, “Dad, coaching works!”
That season, Drake went on to become the California state champion. That’s what he visualized and I permitted myself to be carefrontational along the way.
Learning to be carefrontational with all of my clients has catapulted them to achieving great successes sooner rather than later. It can be tough to step up and tell clients the way you see it and them especially when they don’t see it themselves. It may feel emotionally messy and awkward. If we had a choice to be smooth and cool most of us would opt for that. That’s not what our clients pay us for as coaches. Believe me. They want us to be carefrontational.